CONCORD, N.C. -- Hendrick Motorsports and driver Casey Mears will part ways following the 2008 Sprint Cup Series season.

"We've put a ton of emphasis on the No. 5 program," said Rick Hendrick, owner of Hendrick Motorsports. "It's been a total team effort, and Casey has worked as hard as anyone to help us improve. We've tested more than we ever have, but the results just haven't come.

"None of us, Casey included, have been satisfied with the situation this season. But he's confident there are other options out there for him in 2009, and we feel like Hendrick Motorsports will have some opportunities, too."

Mears will finish the 2008 Sprint Cup campaign in Hendrick's No. 5 Chevrolets.

"I know the effort has been there, but we haven't had the finishes to show for it," Mears said. "I've never tested this much or put more energy into racing. But for whatever reason, we just haven't been able to make it click. It's certainly not for lack of dedication on anyone's part.

"I'll talk to people about opportunities and get my 2009 plans wrapped up soon, but I'm also focused on the next 20 races and finishing 2008 on a positive note. We ran well the second half last year, and I know we can do it again. I want to close this season the right way."

Hendrick Motorsports will announce its 2009 plans at a later date.

Sixth in points but still struggling with setup of new car

On the surface, everything seemed fine. Jeff Gordon sat in the media interview room at Infineon Raceway after a third-place finish that moved him up three places to sixth in points. It seemed like another strong run at the Northern California road course, until somebody asked runner-up David Gilliland whether he was worried having the four-time NASCAR champion right behind him in the closing laps.

Gordon interjected. "You didn't have anything to worry about," he said, "trust me."

He knew the real reasons why he was there, sitting at a table surrounded by reporters after tying his second-best finish of the year. He was there because caution flags and pit strategy had played to their favor. He was there because accidents -- most notably one sliding, three-car fiasco involving Tony Stewart, Jamie McMurray and Kevin Harvick -- had taken out many top contenders. He was there because the circumstances had worked in his favor. He was there even though he had been furious over the radio, even though his crew chief had seemed helpless, even though his car had no business being anywhere near the lead.

Nobody knew this better than Gordon himself, who seemed like a man accepting a gift that he didn't feel he truly deserved. No, he hasn't won yet -- in fact, he hasn't gone this deep into a season without a victory since 2002-- but it's gone beyond not winning. Fifteen years and 81 career victories on NASCAR's premier circuit have taught Gordon what a racecar is supposed to feel like. He hasn't had that feeling in a long time.

"We're trying to just continue to go faster and faster, and we know we have to keep up and we have to try new things, and we keep pushing the limits, but it doesn't really feel like we're going in the right direction," he said. "So I feel very fortunate that we finished third [at Sonoma]. Things really went our way to get that third. You know, when we've won out here in the past, we didn't need things to go our way. We were good enough to make up for some of that. [Sunday], we weren't."

Sonoma, a place where Gordon has won a record five times, was the year in microcosm. Plenty of testing in preparation, solid practice, a good qualifying spot, and then backward from the green flag. Radio problems didn't help. Gordon was clearly frustrated, expressing his dissatisfaction with the car through choice four-letter words. Crew chief Steve Letarte exhausted all his options. While they'll gladly take the final result, they seemed almost embarrassed that attrition and chance had conspired to place them among the leaders at the end. Gordon's tired of being lucky. He wants to be good again.

"It's been an up-and-down year, and we've been able to pull these top-fives out like this and not have great cars. We're working way, way too hard for these types of finishes," he said. "When the car is right, our team is unbelievable. We are just not getting the handling on the car. I know what it should feel like to go fast, especially if it's anywhere, it's here. Other than California Speedway at the beginning of the year and Martinsville, I feel like we are not very close. Yet you look at where we are in the points, and it shows what kind of team we are. I'm frustrated with that, and we've got some work to do."

Gordon sticks resolutely by Letarte, his crew chief the last two seasons, and engineer of the six-victory campaign the No. 24 squad enjoyed last season. But it has to be galling to see Hendrick Motorsports teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. knock out top-10s with regularity. It had to be galling to see stablemate Jimmie Johnson, whose cars and parts and crewmen come from the same facility that Gordon's do, run at the front with such ease Sunday while Gordon was scrapping and clawing to get there. Yes, the competition is better. Yes, the new car has proven a much trickier foil than they had anticipated. But he sees it clicking for so many others, and wonders when it's going to click for him.

"You have to work through it, and I'm just wondering if we're working in the right direction," Gordon said. "Because I don't feel like we are. I don't feel like we're getting better, and I want to, and [Letarte] wants to, and nobody is working harder. I believe in our team and our organization 100 percent. We know what our teammates have. We know what we're dealing with. I feel like as a whole, we're getting beat. I'm just talking about the speed of the cars, because the effort we are putting out and the communication and the teamwork and the pit stops, those are all phenomenal. But we've got to go faster."

So it's off to Kentucky Speedway this week for more testing, and it's likely off to another far-flung racetrack for more testing the week after that, all in an effort to try and squeeze a little more speed and a little better handling out of the car. He believes the people around him are the right ones. He sees the final results. He knows he's in championship contention. But he just doesn't like the path he's taking to get there.

"There's the effort that the team puts in when the race begins, of fighting through every hurdle that comes your way, in dealing with adjustments and pit strategy, working together to get the best finish. In that sense, I think we are one of the best out there," Gordon said. "But it is very frustrating that the cars were so good last year, and this year we're just not where we need to be."

"I know that Hendrick Motorsports has the resources, and I still feel like I have what it takes, and I know my team does. It's been frustrating at times because when you don't have the cars running the way you want them to, everybody starts to lose their confidence. The team does, you do. But it only takes a few little things to click, and all of the sudden you're right back there, and that's what we constantly have to remind ourselves. That's why we're working so hard and that's why we're testing. It's not fun and it's not what I want to do and not what the team wants to do, but it's necessary and what we have to do to stay competitive."

(06-19) 22:04 PDT -- There are plenty of personalities to stoke interest in NASCAR's Sprint Cup, just not enough rivalries. That's the view of somebody in the rare vantage point of being both a driver and a member of the media.

It's not that Kyle Petty wants drivers to leap out of their cars and tackle each other. He'd just like rivalries with some staying power on the track, as it used to be in the heyday of his dad, Richard, whom, like other people in stock-car racing, he refers to as "The King."

"If you go back and look at the rivalry between The King and (David) Pearson and Bobby (Allison), or the rivalry between (Dale) Earnhardt Sr. and Geoff Bodine and Darrell Waltrip or Rusty Wallace, it was a competitive rivalry. It wasn't a get-out-the-car-and-mouth-off-at-each-other rivalry. No matter how bad the rivalry got, you still respected their ability and their talent."

Petty, 48, won't be racing in this weekend's Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway. After competing in every Cup race in Sonoma since 1990 - including last year's stint as both a driver and an analyst - he's out of the car to broadcast the race for TNT.

NASCAR certainly has its personalities. The white hat belongs to Dale Earnhardt Jr., who last week in Michigan got his first win in two years, but sometimes the black hat of the villain gets passed around, he said.

"For all those years, they cheered Jeff Gordon until he started winning," Petty said. "Then they started hating him."

Now that the Vallejo native is older (36) and married with a family, he is perceived differently. Or maybe it's because he hasn't won the Cup Series since 2001, when he won his fourth in a seven-year span.

"Jeff jumped out to those four championships, and everybody said eight or 10 are possible," Petty said. "And then he's just run into a cold stretch."

Fans - many of whom used to resent Gordon because he didn't share the sport's Southern roots - have softened.

"I don't think he's different," Petty said. "You've got 23-year-old Kyle Busch sitting here, so now Jeff's the good guy."

Gordon hasn't won this year, but Petty said, "He's as good or better than he's ever been. The competition is a lot tougher than it was 10 or 15 years ago."

Becoming a family man hasn't made Gordon less competitive. "If you could have heard him last week when we were doing the in-car camera stuff with him," Petty said, "he was livid that the car wouldn't turn or do what he wanted it to do."

Petty naturally includes Gordon, his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson, and Tony Stewart among those who have the best chance to win Sunday, along with defending champion Juan Carlos Montoya and a couple of other drivers who also converted from open-wheel racing, Patrick Carpentier and Dario Franchitti.

"I look for those guys who understand road races and have good equipment," he said.

He gave less of a chance to the "road-course ringers" like Boris Said, Scott Pruett and Ron Fellows.

"Those guys are really good, but it's tough to come in and cherry-pick one race against these guys."

Yet it's still smart strategy to bring in a specialist for one of the few road courses on the Cup schedule, he said.

"It's not all about Sonoma. It's about the global picture of 36 races and maximizing your points at this race. If I can come here with Ron Fellows and run in the top 10, that's better than coming here with my regular driver and running in the top 30."

The theory that qualifying is exceptionally important in this race because it's so hard to pass on Infineon's narrow, twisting track took a beating when Montoya won after starting 32nd.

To Petty, Montoya's victory simply proved that a crew chief can be just as important as a driver in determining victory. In Montoya's case, crew chief Donnie Wingo not only made critical changes in the car's setup after qualifying; he also decided to keep the car on the track when other cars were making pit stops late in the race. He did so even after calculating that the No. 42 Dodge would fall a gallon of fuel short.

He repeatedly urged his driver to save fuel. Their car wasn't the only one to gamble at the end. Jamie McMurray, who was leading until the 101st lap, also tried to make it to the end but ran out of gas on the next-to-last lap.

Will other teams try a similar strategy this year?

"You can try it," Petty said, "but if you don't have the car and the driver to capitalize on it, it makes no difference. Use me as an example. I don't have the car to capitalize on that strategy, and I'm not the driver that Montoya is on a road course. It might have improved my finish, but it wasn't enough to take Kyle Petty to a win."

This will be the second spin at Infineon for the bulkier, safer Car of Tomorrow, which some drivers have criticized. Some have said they NASCAR didn't give them enough input before switching to the COT on a part-time basis last year and full-time this year. Petty doesn't give much credence to the complaints, saying the drivers had every opportunity to make their voices heard.

"It's like sitting on Santa's lap and then complaining when you don't get what you want," he said.

From one storied basketball program to another, former UK basketball player Rajon Rondo ascended to the heights of the basketball universe Tuesday, helping lead the Boston Celtics to their NBA best 17th title.

Rondo, who played at UK in the 2005 and 2006 seasons, helped lead the Wildcats to 2005 NCAA Elite Eight finish, while setting the UK single season steal record with 87.

Having one of the most well-rounded games in his young career, Rondo finished with 21 points, seven rebounds, eight assists, and six credited steals in leading the Celtics to a 131-92 win over the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 6 of the NBA Finals.

"It has been a long time coming, I mean the last time they won a championship was when I was born, so I'm excited to be a part of this organization," said Rondo.

"You know, tonight Rondo was the star," said Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson. "He was the guy out there that made plays, got the steals, pushed their offense into high drive, and created havoc for us."

Rondo finished the series averaging 9.3 ppg, 6.7 apg and 3.8 rpg.

The 22-year old Louisville native, who just completed his second season with the Celtics, became the 12th Wildcat to win an NBA Championship. In the past five seasons, five former Wildcats from four different teams have won an NBA title including Tayshaun Prince with the Detroit Pistons (2004), Nazr Mohammed with the San Antonio Spurs (2005) and Derek Anderson and Antoine Walker with the Miami Heat (2006). In addition, Rondo is the fourth former Wildcat to claim an NBA Title with the Boston Celtics joining Lou Tsioropoulos (1957 and '59), Frank Ramsey (1957, '59-64) and Rick Robey (1981).